Inigo Campioni

Inigo Campioni (14 November 1878-24 May 1944) was a Vice Admiral of the Regia Marina of Italy during the Italo-Turkish War, World War I, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, and World War II.

Biography
Inigo Campioni was born on 14 November 1878 in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy. He graduated from the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno in 1896 and served aboard the armored cruiser Amalfi during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. He was promoted to command the destroyer Ardito during World War I, and he escorted convoys and fought against Austria-Hungary in the Adriatic Sea in 1917. After the war, he rose through the ranks and commanded the 5th Naval Division during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War with Abyssinia, and he became an Italian senator in 1939.

In June 1940, Campioni commanded the Regia Marina battlefleet in the Mediterranean Sea when Italy entered World War II, and he fought against the United Kingdom's Royal Navy at the Battle of Calabria, the Battle of Taranto, Operation White, and the Battle of Cape Spartivento, and he was relieved of command on 8 December 1940 for failing to intercept a British convoy. Angelo Iachino replaced him as the fleet's commander, and he became Governor of the Aegean Islands on 15 July 1941. In November 1941, he retired from active service and remained as governor of the Aegeans, and he oversaw armed resistance against the German occupation of the Aegeans after the September 1943 armistice with the Allied Powers. In September 1943, he was forced to surrender Rhodes to the Germans, and he was imprisoned in Poland. He was later sent to Verona in the Italian Social Republic, and he was executed alongside Luigi Mascherpa on 24 May 1944.